A Northern Territory bookmaker has found itself in the firing line after allowing a punter to place bets on a race that had already been run.

Key points:

A punter placed four online bets on an Alice Springs race with Mad Bookie, which were accepted despite the race being over

The NT's Racing Commission ruled that the wins were void, even though they had been declared winners and $29,000 was paid out

The commission found a technological failure had occurred that allowed the complainant to place the wagers

Mad Bookie is licensed in the NT and its parent company, TopBetta, is at the forefront of the case.

The complainant, as he is described in an NT Racing Commission decision, lodged a gambling dispute against TopBetta after his race winnings of $29,000 were declared void.

The key question in the commission's deliberation was how TopBetta allowed the complainant to place four bets on a racehorse called Catchtherainbow in Alice Springs after the race had closed.

The commission heard the complainant placed four bets on the Mad Bookie website on November 26, 2017.

It heard the complainant's betting log indicated his first bet was placed around 18 minutes after the results of the race were known.

"TopBetta submits the complainant placed all four bets on race five in Alice Springs … between 19:06 and 19:13 AEDT," the decision says.

"TopBetta submit the race in fact closed at 18:46 AEDT and was completed at 18:48 AEDT and therefore the complainant had placed all four wagers after the results were known."

Bets taken from account, declared winners

Despite this, the money for the bets were taken out of the complainant's account and his bets were declared winners.

The complainant said almost immediately after he had placed the bets, his account was credited with more than $29,000.

But just over six minutes after he placed his fourth and final bet, TopBetta made his wagers void, and removed the winnings from his account.

TopBetta submitted the incident occurred due to a race-closing issue in their system, and the race in question was left open in error after it had run.

The company told the commission that the average wager size of the complainant through his account prior to those bets was around $30, so the wagers of $400 and $800 placed by him in this instance were "unusually large".

The commission has found that a "technological failure must have occurred in the Mad Bookie site, for it to have allowed the complainant to place the wagers after the race had already run".

Therefore, the commission has determined "all four wagers were not lawful" and the complainant is "not entitled to the winnings".

The commission's ruling, published this week, was to be "final and conclusive as to the matter in dispute", according to the decision.